WSBK Silverstone: Bayliss Stars in Downpour

Troy Bayliss was the only winner in the World Superbike round at Silverstone, with race 2 being cancelled due to torrential rain. The Australian had taken pole position, and was on top form in a 3-horse race with the two Yamaha Italia bikes of Haga and Corser.
There was action from turn one of the race, where Michel Fabrizio dumped his Honda. Very quickly it was obvious that the two Troys and Nori Haga were the only contenders for the victory. Championship leader James Toseland looked to be riding sensibly in 4th place until he highsided in the stadium section. As he picked the machine up, its right side was badly damaged and there seemed to be a lot of coolant pouring out, but Toseland remounted in 18th and charged back, finishing an impressive 8th to salvage a few points.
Karl Muggeridge was another victim of an early highside, and various other riders fell off to leave just 13 finishers, with Ruben Xaus among those who had fallen and restarted.
TV cameras showed Max Biaggi's eyes through his clear visor at the start of the race, with the Roman Emperor's expression seeming to verge on sheer terror, his eyes like saucers. He had a disappointing race to 6th place, with several scary slides showing how badly the Suzuki was handling on the soaking track, but stayed onboard to retain 3rd place in the championship and chip away a few points from Toseland's lead.
Regis Laconi had one of his occasional good days, with a decent ride to 5th, but was overshadowed by Roby Rolfo's 4th position. The young Italian has had two decent showings in a row now, and must be gaining confidence in the big Superbike after so long on the little 250GP machines.
Troy Corser had led for several laps, but finished 3rd, just behind Haga in 2nd and about three quarters of a minute in front of Rolfo.
Haga's 2nd place took a big bite out of Toseland's championship lead, and is now just 23 points behind the Englishman.
Troy Bayliss was the star of the day. After a great battle with Corser, who was as fast in the first half of the lap as Bayliss was in the second half, Troy number 21 managed to break away. There was a heart-stopping moment when his left foot slipped off the peg at high speed, dragging his trademark titanium toe slider along the ground and covering the following Yamahas in a huge shower of sparks. However, Bayliss kept cool as he lapped everybody up to Toseland and won the race in fine style.
Race 2 was cancelled as the conditions worsened. It seems to be a feature of WSBK riders that they are prepared to race in terrible conditions for race 1, but feel that doing the same again would be too great a risk. Since all of them have been flung over the handlebars a few times due to touching a white line or opening the throttle a tenth of a second too early, it's easy to see their point.
The conditions were freezing cold and soaking wet, thanks to the ridiculous weather the UK has had this year, with a scorching hot spring followed by a miserable start to the summer meaning that the stars of World Supers had much worse conditions than the BSB riders had at Silverstone a few weeks ago. Let's hope that things will improve when the WSBK championship returns to these shores.

MotoGP: A New World Order?

For the last few years there has been a pattern to MotoGP: Japanese bikes, Mediterranean riders.
The Japanese have utterly dominated the manufacturers' standings, with Honda steamrollering the opposition to win championship after championship until their bitter rivals Yamaha managed to poach The Doctor and get in on the action.
Contenders for titles have been from the Latin parts of Europe. Valentino Rossi is clearly the best rider of his generation, and his main rivals have been Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau, with others such as Capirossi and Melandri sniffing around for wins here and there.
Things changed a bit last year, when Nicky Hayden managed to grind out 5 more points than Rossi, in a year when Toni Elias alone stole somewhere between 5 and 30 points from the Italian, not to mention the hideous Yamaha/Michelin reliability problems.
Many people still grumble that the Kentucky Kid didn't really deserve the title, but the points don't lie. Sure, you need a bit of luck to win the title, but you don't get that by qualifying mid-pack with Elias in the vicinity. However, it is true that Hayden did not challenge Rossi for victories. Valentino's only real mistake in 2006 was hopping off in the last race at Valencia. (Unless you count not reaching over and giving Toni Elias's brake lever a tweak at Estoril!)
We didn't know it at the time, but the Gods gave us a glimpse of the future in that last race of 2006 in Valencia. The winner was Troy Bayliss on a Ducati.
An Australian winning a MotoGP race was sensational at the time, but it looks a lot more familiar now. Including Valencia, 5 of the last 6 races have been won by Aussies, and 3 of the last 4 winners are from the land Down Under.
Valencia is the tightest, twistiest track on the calendar, and Ducati won by a mile. Lately all the talk has been of Ducati building an incredibly quick bike that doesn't go round corners. Wait a minute though, the 990cc Ducati was the quickest thing in a straight line too, and it won at Valencia so it must have made a fair attempt at changing direction. Why would Ducati suddenly build an 800cc machine that didn't handle? The simple answer is, they didn't.
Ducati's first 990cc MotoGP bikes were bucking broncos that scared the Bejaysus out of Capirossi, who's a hard nut indeed. The little Italian factory has constantly learned and improved its machinery to the point where you wouldn't choose anything else. (I hope Nicky and Marco have switched to different astrologers and tarot card readers). At Qatar and China, Casey Stoner's Ducati was very nearly as fast as Rossi's Yamaha around the twisty bits, then when it came to a long straight it just made its excuses and left.
Le Mans was a strange race due to the rain, but Stoner qualified on the front row, and with a little help from Bridgestone he grabbed a podium.
A lot of people think the Yamaha is the best bike in MotoGP. I don't. Sure, if you bolt on super-sticky tyres it goes around corners like nothing else, but it's less impressive on race tyres where it can't exploit its corner speed. The Ducati is the best bike overall, helped by the stellar performance of the Bridgestone engineers this year.
Is Stoner the best rider this year? He has certainly blown the other 3 Ducati riders into the weeds, but what about Rossi? The Doctor had a miserable time at Le Mans, outqualified by his team-mate and struggling for a setup. Only time will tell if the cocky young Aussie is one of the greats, but he has been devastatingly quick this year, and he hasn't missed an apex under pressure, never mind chucked the bike down the street. Last year, taking a pole position on the 4th-rate LCR Honda with whatever tyres Michelin had lying around was a stunning achievement for a rookie, but we didn't take the hint, did we?
The season is less than one third over, but already the old order is looking shaky. The championship being led by an Australian on an Italian bike with Japanese tyres? Rossi trailing in 2nd because the other guy keeps beating him fair and square? If this is a new world order, then bring it on!

MotoGP Le Mans: Awesome Aussies Again!

Who said MotoGP was becoming predictable? Well, they were wrong!
Our first wet/dry race of the season, and what a race it was.
Colin Edwards had stunned the world by taking pole position with a banzai lap that put him ahead of Stoner, Checa and team-mate Rossi. The Italian looked gutted at the lack of performance from his Yamaha, which is supposed to excel on twisty tracks, and the Michelin tyres which were supposed to be perfect for the French race. Despite his speed in qualifying, Edwards was outside the top 10 on race tyres in the various practise sessions. Things did not look good for Yamaha.
Stoner had amazed many people by qualifying on the front row. The Ducati is clearly not just a missile in a straight line, it goes round corners too.
The race started off dryish.
It didn't stay like that for long. Rain was slowly spitting down from the start, and the track was getting more and more treacherous. With the front runners being careful, it fell to the local boys to put on a show. Kawasaki's Randy de Puniet took the lead, and if that wasn't astonishing enough, Sylvain Guintolli achieved true superhero status when he led his home race fair and square on the second-string Yamaha with its miserable Dunlop tyres. It was a stunning achievement for the young Frenchman, which he topped off by having a terrifying highside right in front of Valentino Rossi. Guintolli was fired miles into the air, frantically flapping his arms but failing to overcome the force of gravity. Rossi almost came to a halt in avoiding the Tech 3 machine as it slid along the track in front of him. To his great credit, Guintolli crawled back to his battered bike, restarted and trundled round to the pits to change bikes.
Everybody else changed bikes at around that time, as the rain was falling ever harder, and the modern rain rules allow for a tyre change by switching to a backup bike with rain tyres already fitted. One of the first in was Australian Chris Vermeulen. The Suzuki rider is a wet weather specialist, having taken a pole position in similar conditions before. Vermeulen came out of the pits behind the front runners but very close to them. His team-mate John Hopkins came out in the lead, but was soon overhauled by Vermeulen.
Rossi was looking good at first on his rain tyres, but things started to go wrong. He was having trouble, often running wide in corners, and letting Stoner cruise past. At one stage The Doctor was well out of the seat in the middle of a chicane, and although he held onto the machine as only he can do, he lost momentum and was swamped by other riders.
Nicky Hayden was in a promising position when he lost the front under braking, dropped the bike and had a spectacular high speed crash which destroyed his Honda, joining other crashers such as de Puniet, Checa and Elias, who had all been caught out by the slippery track.
Up front, Vermeulen was being closed down by the fearless Marco Melandri, but even Marco has his limits, and after several frightening moments he backed off to give the Australian a breath-taking debut victory in MotoGP.
Casey Stoner had an excellent ride in terrible conditions, finishing 3rd and extending his championship points lead over Rossi. Before the race, one motorsports website printed a list of riders who have won at least 3 of the 4 opening races as Stoner has done. The names were: Duke, Surtees, Hocking, Hailwood, Agostini, Sheene, Roberts Senior, Spencer, Lawson, Rainey, Doohan, Rossi. See any familiar names in there? This was an incredibly mature ride to a podium place by the self-confident little Aussie, and showed that he deserves his place on that list.
Dani Pedrosa forgot that he's a terrible wet weather rider, and showed himself to be an excellent wet weather rider to take 4th place. Alex Hofmann will be pinching himself after a well-earned 5th place, 2nd of the 4 Ducatis home. Capirossi could manage just 8th place, and his career looks to be effectively over. In a BBC interview after the race he complained bitterly that Ducati aren't working hard enough to make the bike work for him. Sorry, Loris, but they'd be mad to do that with Stoner on this kind of form.
Valentino Rossi, finished a devastated 6th, his bike trying to throw him at the scenery at least 3 times per lap. This was supposed to be his race, where he would win and Stoner finish 6th or 7th. Can he regain his world title? Hmmm...
All in all, this was a brilliant race. Vermeulen is a sensational wet weather rider, and fully deserved his win. Melandri had a great race after an appalling start to the season, while Stoner's form should have Yamaha bosses waking up screaming in a cold sweat. The Australian isn't going to sit around while Rossi wins at all of the twisty European tracks, so Yamaha had better find some serious horsepower to get closer to the Ducati.

WSBK Monza: Samurai Slides To Victory

"Nitro" Nori Haga blasted to a double victory in the Monza round of the World Superbike Championship yesterday. On a track known for its tight slipstreaming battles, the Yamaha rider won by over 8 seconds in race one, and almost 3 seconds in race two.
Race one started with Lorenzo Lanzi seemingly trying to race the 1950's version of the Monza racetrack, when there wasn't a chicane at the end of the start-finish straight. He somehow missed everybody as he screamed through the braking zone without doing very much braking.
James Toseland had been the main threat, leading the pack until a poor tyre choice became obvious. The Ten Kate Honda rider had chosen too soft a compound, wrongly thinking that he could make it last the race. The long straights cooked the central part of the tyre, forcing the Englishman to weave from side to side on the straights in order to use the sides of the tyre rather than the disintegrating band around the middle. Losing 3 seconds a lap, he somehow managed to grab 4th place.
His Ten Kate team-mate Roby Rolfo had been on surprisingly good form for the first time this year. However, Rolfo's tyre also deteriorated, then finally fell apart altogether. The Italian trundled round for 17th place, not even rewarded with a single point after running in podium positions for much of the race. Maybe if he had copied Toseland's swerving antics he might have preserved the tyre to the chequered flag.
Max Biaggi had his trademark great start followed by slow opening laps, but was on decent form. He was trying very hard, and eventually overcooked it in the braking zone for turn one. The Roman Emperor managed to sit the bike up and run into the gravel, then restart, having lost precious seconds.
Troy Bayliss, hard charging as always, took advantage of Max's misfortune to snatch 2nd place. It wouldn't have been as impressive if Toseland, Rolfo and Biaggi hadn't had problems, but choosing the right tyres and staying on the track are all part of racing, so the Aussie's podium was well deserved.
The second Troy, Mr Corser, battled well in the early laps but could not maintain the pace and dropped back, finishing 5th.
Haga ended up taking an utterly dominant victory. Everybody from the Yamaha Italia factory, around 400 people, had come to watch. They were rewarded for the great efforts they have made this year: in round one at Qatar the Yamaha was down on top speed and chewing its tyres, but at Monza it was as fast as anything else and the tyres lasted the whole race, even with the little Japanese nutcase Haga at the controls.
Race two saw the Kawasaki of Regis Laconi lead through the first chicane, but soon drop back into the chasing pack. James Toseland breezed past the Frenchman to the front.
Roby Rolfo had another excellent race by his standards, but he couldn't hold off Nori Haga, who was battling through the field. Soon the Yamaha was behind Toseland's Honda. The Englishman managed to hold Haga off for a while, but his bike wasn't quite set up for the harder tyre that he had chosen for the second race. Nitro Nori stretched out a comfortable lead that he held to the chequered flag, while Toseland dropped back into the clutches of the following pack, where Biaggi, Rolfo, Bayliss and Corser were beating each other up for the podium positions. Bayliss had been at the back of the group, but was moving forward through them, briefly getting in front of Biaggi before slipping back. On the last lap, Max went for Toseland, but had a huge slide on the exit of the last chicane. The Roman narrowly avoided flying over the handlebars, but ended up in 5th at the back of the group.
Bayliss forced his way past Toseland on the way into the Parabolica, but ran too deep. Toseland, who had earlier gone around the high-speed right-hander side by side with Haga, almost touching, had no qualms about nipping back past the Australian to grab 2nd place. Bayliss had to settle for 3rd, with Rolfo in a season's best 4th position.
Haga has now leapfrogged Biaggi into 2nd place in the World Championship standings with 194 points, just 3 ahead of the Italian. James Toseland still leads with 229 points.
Toseland is still favourite to win the title. Relatively speaking, this was a bad day at the office for Toseland, and he still ended up with 4th and 2nd places and a clear lead in the points standings.
Max Biaggi lost only a few points to Toseland this weekend, but slipped to 3rd in the rankings. It is asking a lot for the Roman Emperor to take the WSBK title in his first year, learning many of the tracks and having no setup data to fall back on.
Haga is, not for the first time, the dark horse in the race for the title. He has lost out in the past due to inconsistency, but with 3 victories this year, he is looking as good as ever. The Yamaha is rapidly evolving into a top bike. This could be Haga's big chance to become champion, but he will probably need Toseland to have a few more bad days along the way.